After arriving on Mars, the UAE wants to go to the moon with China

TIME.CO, Jakarta – Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center United Arab Emirates (United Arab Emirates) announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese National Space Agency on Friday, September 16, 2022. The two have signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation mission to the moon in the future.

The collaboration in question involves the landing of the UAE robotic rover on a lander from China. “This agreement marks the first joint space project between the UAE and China,” the UAE side said on Twitter.

The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center has already worked with two of its private partners on the Emirates Moon Mission project. The mission is expected to send a small rover, the Rashid, to the moon this year. Rashid, which weighs 10 kilograms, will reach the lunar surface aboard the Hakuto-R, a lander produced by the Tokyo company ispace. Together they will glide on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.

The reputation of China

Collaborating with China on future lunar missions also makes a lot of sense, given China’s impressive record of lunar exploration. Over the past decade, China has launched three moon landing missions, and all of them have been successful.

Chang’e 3 sent a pair of landers and rovers to the near side of the moon in 2013, and Chang’e 4 landed a similar pair on the other side of the moon that had never been explored before in January 2019. Both the missions are still going strong. And, at the end of 2020, the mission Change 5 was able to bring samples of dust and rock back to Earth.

A visitor sees a sample of the Moon brought back by the Chinese Chang’e-5 spacecraft to the National Museum of China in Beijing, capital of China, on April 18, 2021. (Xinhua / Yin Dongxun)

The UAE wants bigger and further away

The Emirates Moon mission and the recently announced deal with China are part of the UAE’s efforts to become a bigger space player. Another effort is for the UAE to send their first astronaut, Hazza Al Mansouri, and stay for six months next year as a member of SpaceX’s Crew-6 mission for NASA.

In 2020, the UAE launched the Emirates Mars Mission, which sent an orbiter named Hope to the red planet. Hope arrived safe and sound in February 2021 and is still continuing to study the atmosphere and climate of Mars. The UAE is also developing a mission in the asteroid belt, the goal of which is to launch in the late 1920s.

SPACE

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